The Zombie Link Chronicles
by Shadsie
Summary: What it says on the tin, stories in which Link becomes a zombie and has to deal with it. A rare attempt at humor by me, beware. Crack one-shots.
1. Experiment

_**Disclaimer and Notes:**__ Nintendo owns the Legend of Zelda. I am seeking no profit. _

_This was inspired by a conversation I had with ArkNorth. We have bizarre conversations all the time. We also live next to a cemetery and I think it's affecting our minds. The game settings are in no particular order. I only have the two scenarios so far and welcome suggestions for scenarios to other game settings. Although primarily humor, what I've written seems to have a strong undercurrent of melancholy, as well. _

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**Twilight Princess Scenario**

**1-Experiment **

Link lay dead upon a rocky outcrop. He'd lain there for close to a week. Midna had avenged him, destroying the beasts that had killed him. Afterwards, she severed herself from his shadow to seek help. She needed to find a new Hero to help her, or at least to figure out a way to inform his friends without scaring them with her appearance and getting herself killed.

She first headed toward Hyrule Castle to speak with Princess Zelda. She got distracted on the way by a small, shiny metal object she found out later was called a nickel.

Link was facedown, so the crows did not take his eyes and the general decay was at a level that, save for the graying skin and the dark blood that gathered at his wounds, his mouth and his tear ducts, he looked fairly fresh – the weather had been cool.

Whether it was the wind, a small tremor in the earth, or just something regarding his decay process, a rock beneath him shifted. With it shifted other rocks. A small landslide ensued and the corpse tumbled down, off the rocky outcrop to land face-up in a quiet pool.

There were fairies there. They flitted above this new curiosity.

"Oh, disgusting!" one of them shrilly complained. "A fairy-spring is supposed to be pure! How do we get this carcass out of here?"

Another flitted by the unfortunate's face. "Aw, such a noble kind of face… I bet this Hylian was really handsome when he was alive."

"His rotting fluids are polluting our water!"

The eldest fairy in the spring cleared his throat. He may have been pink…and sparkly… but he was as male as fairies got. In fact, he had a long white beard behind his fairy-glow. "I see the opportunity for an experiment," he said.

"An experiment?" one of the youngest ones asked, "What kind of experiment?"

"We are medical fairies," the elder said, "sworn to help all creatures of goodwill within Hyrule and we are very good at it. We've all found opportunity to bring people and animals back from the dead."

"But Elder!" someone whined, "We can only do that with something that's just died! Still warm! We can only start a heart that has just ceased beating!"

A strong fairy poked one of the biceps of the corpse. "He not only got stiffed-up, he's actually starting to loosen."

"Ewww…"

"What better way to stretch our powers!" The elder declared. "We've all been wondering just how long after death we can bring something back. I'd say this one's about a week gone? We've nothing to lose from trying."

All of the fairies of the little hidden spring concentrated their energies and spun around the late Hero. After a moment, he grunted, blinked and sat up.

"_Wasn't I just swimming with Queen Rutella in Nayru's infinite waters?"_ he mentally asked himself. He'd been pretty sure he'd taken a wound to the gut and that he'd ascended a great stairway to the waiting arms of the Goddesses who'd told him that the fate of Hyrule was something that wasn't on his shoulders any longer. He'd been concerned for the land, but pretty happy…

"At peace…" he groaned. Now he was stiff, itchy and wet. Also, there was this horrible smell.

Shrill voices sounded all around him.

"Yay! Hooray! We did it!"

The Hero blinked, looking at all the fairies surrounding him. He scratched at his head and found hair and bits of skin coming off in his palm in clumps.

"What happened?" He asked sluggishly.

"You were dead," the fairy elder explained to him, "but we pooled our powers and brought you back. Our experiment worked!"

"Experiment?"

"You just fell into our pool," a little female fairy said.

"A fairy spring," Link sighed. He smiled, knowing them well. Why was he finding his speech so slow? He felt like he had to fight to make words, like his tongue was made of cold leather. Then, he saw his reflection in the spring's waters.

"Aaaaah!"

"I'm afraid… we aren't used to bringing life to one as far gone as you," the elder confessed. "You seem to have been dead for quite some time…But this is so cool! It will go down in the Fairy Medical Handbook!"

"Can't you do anything more?" Link pleaded. "Kinda still a corpse here!"

It was then that a shadow darted over to him, giggling in a familiar way.

Midna.

"What? You're alive? How did this happen? I left you here almost a week ago to try to get help!"

"Fairies," Link replied, looking at his hands and arms. He absent-mindedly picked the skin off the index finger of his right hand until it was bone.

"You were pretty dead when I left you. I guess fools don't know when to stay dead."

"I think I'd like to go back," Link confessed, holding his hand up to get a look at the gray skin and the de-fleshed finger, which bled black ichor. "To tell you the truth, I was kinda happy where I was."

"So, what are you going to do now, Hero? Ugh, you smell like a ReDead."

Link sniffed. "I'm…. really hungry. I need something fatty, fleshy…"

"Don't look at me like that!"

"Brains. I need brains, Midna."

"Well, that's for sure."

Link rose to his feet and let the water from the fairy spring drip off him. "Apparently, Hyrule still needs me. I wonder if I can die again after this is all over."

"I wonder if you can still use the wolf form like this, zombie-boy." With that, Midna took out the shadow crystal which enabled Link's lupine transformation. The results were…. Not pretty.

A skinless growling abomination stood before her. Save for a few clumps of fur, its frame was made of tight, half-rotten muscle. The wound in Link's abdomen, while quite serious (fatal) in his human form, but fairly neat, opened up in the wolf-form allowing loops of intestine to trail out.

"Those will get caught on something," Midna muttered before changing him back.

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Link made his way to Telma's Bar in Castle Town. He wore a cloak so as to try to conceal his appearance. Luckily, the menu included a dish of pork brains in gravy, lightly fried and drizzled in a reduction.

As he went on, finishing the tasks of his heroic quest, Link's speech and thought processes became slower and simpler, as if the body was rejecting the spirit, or the inner spirit could not keep up with the decay of the brain. His new state did make him pretty much invincible as he felt no pain. Any broken bone he just snapped back into place. He was immune to poisoning and no wound was fatal on a body that was already technically dead.

He kept going back to Telma's for the pork brain dish often.

By the time he fought Ganondorf, he was not fighting for Hyrule. Link faced down the sorcerer's giant pig form in anticipation of eating its gigantic pig brain. His zombie-hunger gave him the strength he needed to crack open the dark swine Ganon's skull with his mighty sword.

Midna and Zelda could only watch the bloody feast in disgust.

No one knew what happened to Link after that. Some say that he quietly dug his own grave and laid himself down in it to die again in peace. Some say that he joined a troupe of dancing ReDeads. Some say he opened up his own brain-themed restaurant.

Hyrule would forever after have a place of honor in its history books for their Undead Hero.


	2. Terminal

**Majora's Mask Scenario**

**2-Terminal **

Link suffered from severe poisoning after falling into the tainted waters of the Southern Swamp. He was partway into the Third Day – once again – and knew of nothing to do but to play the Song of Time on his sacred ocarina in hopes that he would find time to get help.

The residents of Clock Town reported seeing a shaft of light and a child randomly appear in town by the clock tower. Upon his mysterious arrival, he doubled over, choked, and fell down dead. People were appalled and saddened by this. The guards were dispatched to try to locate the boy's parents – but he seemed to have been in the town alone. The little fairy that was at his side flitted off immediately, chiming in panic.

Tatl had left to beseech help from one of the Great Fairies, which of course, meant reuniting a fragmented soul. She was distracted by a nickel.

The people of Clock Town noticed that the dead child carried a sword and shield. They found the name "LINK" scrawled on the inside of the shield. A death within their town had not occurred for some time and nearly the whole of the city joined the funeral procession to the edge of Ikana. Link was given a soldier's service, since everyone figured that, because of his weaponry, he was a little recruit in training, someone who'd wanted to grow up to become a soldier.

There were two very strange things about these events. One was the mysterious man who hung apart from the crowd. He was laden with a huge backpack that had masks of various kinds hanging on it. He smiled perpetually, but shook his head and muttered about doom and despair. He also muttered something about waiting for an "awakening." The other strange thing was that everyone present at the service spoke of having seen the mysterious boy they were burying in their dreams – and that he had helped them with various problems.

Many tears were shed for someone they never knew, yet knew all too well.

Life went on in Termina as the moon in the sky grew closer to the ground. A feeling of darkness grew thicker in the air by the day and by the hour. Rumors about the end of the world, at first dismissed, grew. People began evacuating Clock Town, fleeing to the outer edges of their lands, hoping to escape disaster. Some chose to give into hedonism. Others did their best to make peace with their respective gods and goddesses.

Mid-afternoon on the final day, a yellow fairy made an urgent flight to a small grave, leading an extra-strong pink healing-fairy that was bid to come with her by the Great Fairy of Clock Town.

As the moon bore down and the earth rumbled, the few people that were left in Clock Town reported seeing the kid they'd just buried running toward the clock tower with his sword held high. He reportedly had a single battle cry, loud and strong as he looked skyward;

"MOON BRAINS!"

What happened after that was too much of a chaotic jumble for any citizen to recall. The Four Giants of legend came and threw the moon back into the air.

Some say the revenant-child, whom everyone felt somehow was to be credited for summoning the Giants, left the town quietly.

Tatl knew the truth. She and her brother, along with the Skull Kid followed Link back to his open grave in Ikana. The Happy Mask Salesman waited for him there.

The zombie-boy, saying not a word, handed the Ocarina of Time to the salesman and nodded. Tatl and Tael held each other and the Skull Kid bowed his head low as Link stepped back into the grave the people of Clock Town had given him. The Happy Mask Salesman played the Song of Healing to ease his spirit and to help it depart in finality.


End file.
